The Smart Blogging Toolkit is a course designed to provide you a set of awesome tools to help you grow your blog. I’ve created this course because I wanted to share all the things that I’ve learned about the tools that can really make a difference for a blogger.

They helped me a lot and I’m sure that they can be very helpful for you too!

Nowadays, the visual component of blogging has become more and more important. Having great content is essential but graphics and images also play a key role in reaching potential readers.

Social media focuses a lot on visual content: Pinterest is a visual search engine, Facebook encourages video content, Instagram is focused on images, and so on.

Having high-quality images on your blog makes your content more appealing to readers. And social media graphics play an important role in attracting new readers.

So in this section of the course, we will focus on tools that can help you improve the visual aspects of your posts.

I am terrible at taking pictures and creating nice graphics (or videos) so I struggled a lot to find the right tools to help me overcome this. And I’m glad to share them with you! 🙂

Photo editing and graphics creation

If you want to edit your photos or create well-designed graphics for your blog (and social media), here are 2 very helpful tools.

Canva

Canva is the tool that I usually use to edit photos and create graphics. You can find below a list of its features.

I like the fact that they offer many templates that I can personalize and. And this makes creating graphics and images a lot easier!

I use the paid version of Canva now because it offers all the features that I need, like creating a brand kit and having my own templates. But the free version is also very helpful so you can start with it.

Picmonkey

PicMonkey is a similar tool. I’ve used it in the past and I found it easy to use and helpful. They only have a 30-day free trial and then you need to pay a monthly fee.

It’s cheaper than Canva but I also think that Canva’s features are better so I prefer to pay a little more to be able to use them. The advantage of using PicMonkey is that this tool is faster than Canva. At least this was my impression anytime I created printables or other projects using these tools.

Stock photos

If you are talented at taking your own photos for your blog, having a photo editing program will be enough. If this is not your case, you will need some nice stock photos to include in your posts.

Free stock photos providers

Sites like Unsplash offer free photos that you can use in your posts. Some of them look really nice but the disadvantage is that you risk spending a lot of time searching for the right photo.

Paid stock photos providers

At first, I used to buy photos from Canva. It was easy to purchase them from Canva because I was already using their program for my graphics. But as my blog grew I decided to switch to a better service.

I started using Shutterstock and I love their site! They have awesome photos and you can find a wide variety of images on their site.

There are many sites that you can use for stock photos (both free and paid) so I’ve gathered a list of the most popular ones.

Video tools for beginners

I don’t use videos on my blog and honestly, I don’t like creating videos. But I had the chance to work with some interesting tools for some online projects and they can be very helpful if you create video content for your blog.

Animoto

In my opinion, this is the best tool for bloggers who are not experienced with creating and editing videos. Animoto makes video editing very easy because it takes many editing decisions for you and helps you improve your videos even if you don’t have editing skills.

Lumen5

This tool allows you to create videos from your blog posts, using photos and some text from your post. You can make a video from your post and use it to promote your article on Facebook, where videos usually get a higher reach.

My favorite tool for blog graphics

If I were to choose only one of the above tools, my top recommendation would be Canva, because it combines a lot of helpful features and you can start with the free version, so you won’t need to spend money on it at first.

About me

Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Raluca, and I'm here to share my stories and inspire you with tips and ideas about parenting, travel, and building a happy family!
I'm a wife, a mom of a wonderful boy, a blogger, and most of all a woman with big dreams. Read More…